"Women all over America are being denied access to a safe and legal way of terminating their pregnancies after birth," the group's president, Cecile Richards, told reporters at a press conference. "Obviously, this leaves a lot of women with no option but to take matters into their own hands and undergo an illegal 'backstreet' abortion."

Currently, women and doctors involved in carrying out post-natal terminations risk life-imprisonment, or, in some states, even the death penalty. "This represents a gross violation of women's rights," Richards said. "Women have the right to choose to terminate their pregnancy at any stage, including after birth."

The calls have been echoed by other pro-choice groups across the country. "We mustn't listen to the religious fanatics who say that a fetus becomes a full human life at the moment when it pops out of a woman's vagina," said Terry O'Neill of the National Organization for Women (NOW). "Most fetuses don't even develop the capacity for speech until the eleventh trimester."

These latest calls come in the wake of the imprisonment of Texas woman Jayne Waters, who terminated her pregnancy by smothering the fetus with a pillow. She had told authorities, "It just wouldn't stop crying."